


Read the Signs

by drneroisgod



Series: You're All The Things I've Got to Remember [5]
Category: H.I.V.E. Series - Mark Walden
Genre: Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, Raven has nightmares, and nero has an existential crisis but it's fine, angsty fluff, because!, she was a traumatized gal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24975670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drneroisgod/pseuds/drneroisgod
Summary: When Nero and Raven escape an armed conflict, they must spend the night in a safe house while the storm passes.
Relationships: Natalya | Raven & Maximilian Nero
Series: You're All The Things I've Got to Remember [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1478930
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Read the Signs

Thunder clapped overhead, rattling the windscreen and sending a shudder down Dr. Nero’s spine. A stiff barrage of rain pelted the SUV with steady animosity, drowning out the sound of bullets—if there were any, still—speeding from the cars on their tail.

On the radio, the inclement weather warning blared. Flash floods, immanent.

“Have we lost them?” Nero asked, slumped far down in his seat. 

“I’m working on it!” Raven shouted over the weather pouring in through the shattered window beside her. She took a sharp turn, twisting the steering wheel with her whole torso.

Nero grimaced. “Not downhill, not downhill!”

“Would you let me drive?” Raven shot him a look. 

“Oh my god.”

Raven sloshed through a few more side streets before finding another path uphill and gunning it. She turned back—they’d lost them.

“We need shelter,” she said. 

“Pull over,” Nero said. 

“You’re joking, right?”

Nero waved his hand urgently. Teeth clenched, Raven slid the SUV into the brimming gutter and hopped out, cold water splashing up to her calves. Nero pulled his coat over his head and waited for Raven’s signal that she was following, then plunged into an alley. Soon, Raven had no idea where they were, and she was surprised that Nero did—he had said he’d never been to the city when they’d arrived.

“Almost there,” Nero promised. A left, a right, four blocks more. Glancing around for watching eyes—if the screen of rain was not protection enough—Nero stopped at an inconspicuous wooden door and pulled down the handle to reveal a keypad. He punched a number and the door swung open.

“In, in,” Nero urged, ushering Raven into the darkness with his arm.

“Where are we?” Raven asked. 

An orange light flickered to life, revealing a hole-in-the-wall bunkhouse. There was a wood stove that took up the largest amount of space, some cabinets, a few broken folding chairs. 

“The Contessa mentioned that she keeps a number of safe houses around this region for her people’s use,” Nero said. “I saw her sign and followed.”

Raven shrugged off her sopping coat. “That would be useful information to give me  _ beforehand _ next time,” she said. Visibly shivering, Raven walked to the other end of the room and began to build a fire in the stove. Nero took inventory of the cabinets.

“Aha,” he said. “Dry clothes.”

Raven held out her arms. “Yes, please.”

Nero tossed her a t-shirt and pants, taking an identical set from the larger sizes. He slipped into the bathroom to change, peeling his tailored shirt from his skin and wringing out his suit in the sink.

Raven banged on the bathroom door, already changed. “Give me your shoes. I’ll put newspaper in them to dry.”

“I’m afraid this may be their last run,” Nero replied, handing over the waterlogged leather. 

“They’ll have to do for now,” Raven said. “There aren’t any boots your size in that closet.”

Nero strung up his clothes in the shower and toweled his hair before joining Raven in the main room, which was now considerably warmer. Raven had a can of soup going already, and was dragging two cots near the stove.

“Let me help with that.” Nero took one cot and unfolded it. They pulled out blankets, pillows, and thick wool socks that may or may not have been washed since their last use. 

“What are you thinking about?” Nero asked, when they had doled out their soup and warmed up from their first bites.

“Safe houses,” Raven said. “I should build some.”

“A good thought,” Nero said. “Where?”

“The usual places,” Raven said. “London, Tokyo, Berlin, New York. I haven’t decided yet.”

“Whatever you need, let me know,” Nero said. “It’s a bit of an undertaking.”

Raven smiled. “Thank you.”

They ate their soup amid the sound of pounding rain, which had not slowed by the time their bowls were empty. 

“I don’t know about you, but I am going to get some sleep,” Nero said.

Raven only nodded her head with exhaustion. She had shown remarkable resolve over the last forty-eight hours, and Nero knew she deserved some time to completely recover from all the running. He went to the wall and tested the steel reinforcements on the door just one more time before turning off the light. Only the flickering from the wood stove lit his path back to his cot. 

He didn’t remember falling asleep, but a cry from Raven had him awake in an instant. He sat bolt upright, taking a defensive pose, but he was rewarded only with a few more moments of silence. Then, again, Raven made a thin whimper in her sleep.

Nero sighed, relieved, then pitying. A beam of light from the upstairs floor gave him enough light to see. Raven was curled up tightly, sweat beading on her forehead, and a look of pain on her face. Should he wake her? She might never get back to sleep, and she’d been running on so little already. He dared not touch her—after so many deflections, Raven had finally admitted that her being touched while asleep ended up being a part of her dreams. Nero suspected she was not telling him much, much more. 

Another whimper.

Sighing, and pulling her blanket up to her chin as gently as he could, Nero contemplated Raven in her shaft of moonlight. He’d let her sleep.

“It’s okay, Natalya,” he said in a low voice. “You’re safe. You’re stronger than they are. You’re stronger than anyone.”

Nero tucked himself into bed once more, listening to Raven’s breathing hitch and tumble in her throat. 

“I’m right here with you,” he reminded her, hoping her unconscious mind could hear what it could not feel. “You’re not alone, my dear. You’re okay.”

Nero suddenly felt something very odd come over him. He didn’t want to give it a name—it felt dangerous. No one was like this with their hired assassins. Nobody talked them through nightmares. They were employer and employee, those were their terms. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t normal. And, then, he worried, what if it was? What if this was something old, something as native to humanity as marking a grave?

His father once said to him,  _ I used to wake up in the night if I heard you stop breathing _ . 

Nero listened as Raven’s breaths evened out once more, her nightmare apparently past.  _ She is nearly an adult _ , he told himself.  _ It isn’t the same at all.  _

_ But what if it is? _

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Outside, it had stopped raining. 

**Author's Note:**

> The thing about waking up when your baby's not breathing is something my dad has said to me about what it was like after I was born. So that's the science behind that statement.


End file.
